VI
When frantic bangings on the propped-shut door awakened him nextmorning, he confusedly imagined that they were noises in thecommunicator headphones, and until he heard his name called trieddrearily to make sense of them.
But suddenly he opened his eyes. Somebody banged on the door once more.A voice cried angrily:
"Bron Hoddan! Wake up or I'll go away and let whatever happens to youhappen! Wake up!"
It was the voice of the Lady Fani, at once indignant and tearful andsolicitous and angry.
He rolled out of bed and found himself dressed. He hadn't slept the fullnight. At one time he couldn't rest for thinking about the sounds in thecommunicator when he listened at the spaceport. He listened again, andwhat he heard made him get his clothes on for action. That was when heheard a distinctly Waldenian voice, speaking communications speech withcrisp distinctness, calling the landing grid. The other voices were notWaldenian ones and he grew dizzy trying to figure them out. But he wasclothed and ready to do whatever proved necessary when he realized thathe had the landing grid receiver, that there would be no reception evenof the Waldenian call until the landing grid crew had built another outof spare parts in store, and even then couldn't do much until they'dpainfully sorted out and re-spliced all the tangled wires that Hoddanhad cut. That had to be done before the grid could be used again.
He'd gone back to sleep while he tried to make sense of things. Now,long after daybreak, he shook himself and made sure a stun-pistol washandy. Then he said:
"Hello. I'm awake. What's up? Why all the noise?"
"Come out of there!" cried Fani's voice, simultaneously exasperated andfilled with anxiety. "Things are happening! Somebody's here from Walden!They want you!"
Hoddan could not believe it. It was too unlikely. But he opened the doorand Thal came in, and Fani followed.
"Good morning," said Hoddan automatically.
Thal said mournfully:
"A bad morning, Bron Hoddan! A bad morning! Men from Walden came ridingover the hills--"
"How many?"
"Two," said Fani angrily. "A fat man in a uniform, and a young man wholooks like he wants to cry. They had an escort of retainers from one ofmy father's neighbors. They were stopped at the gate, of course, andthey sent a written message in to my father, and he had them broughtinside right away!"
Hoddan shook his head.
"They probably said that I'm a criminal and that I should be sent backto Walden. How'd they get down? The landing grid isn't working."
Fani said viciously:
"They landed in something that used rockets. It came down close to acastle over that way--only six or seven miles from the spaceport. Theyasked for you. They said you'd have landed from the last liner fromWalden. And because you and Thal fought so splendidly--why, everybody'stalking about you. So the chieftain over there accepted a present ofmoney from them, and gave them horses as a return gift, and sent themhere with a guard. Thal talked to the guards. The men from Walden havepromised huge gifts of money if they help take you back to the thingthat uses rockets."
"I suspect," said Hoddan, "that it would be a spaceboat--a lifeboat.Hm-m-m.... Yes. With a built-in tool-steel cell to keep me from tellinganybody how to make--" He stopped and grimaced. "If they had time tobuild one in, that's certain! They'd take me to the spaceport in asound-proofed can and I'd be hauled back to Walden in it. Fine!"
"What are you going to do?" asked Fani anxiously.
* * * * *
Hoddan's ideas were not clear. But Darth was not a healthy place forhim. It was extremely likely, for example, that Don Loris would feelthat the very bad jolt he'd given that astute schemer's plans, by usingstun-pistols at the spaceport, had been neatly canceled out by hisrescue of Fani. He would regard Hoddan with a mingled gratitude andaversion that would amount to calm detachment. Don Loris could not becounted on as a really warm personal friend.
On the other hand, the social system of Darth was not favorable to astranger with an already lurid reputation for fighting, but whoseweapons would be useless unless frequently recharged--and who couldn'tcount on that as a steady thing.
As a practical matter, his best bet was probably to investigate the nineinexplicable ships overhead. They hadn't co-operated with theWaldenians. It could be inferred that no confidential relationshipexisted up there. It was possible that the nine ships and the Waldeniansdidn't even know of each other's presence. There is a lot of room inspace. If both called on ship-frequency and listened on ground-frequency,they would not have picked up each others' summons to the ground.
"You've got to do something!" insisted Fani. "I saw Father talking tothem! He looked happy, and he never looks happy unless he's planningsome skulduggery!"
"I think," said Hoddan, "that I'll have some breakfast, if I may. Assoon as I fasten up my ship bag."
Thal said mournfully:
"If anything happens to you, something will happen to me too, because Ihelped you."
"Breakfast first," said Hoddan. "That, as I understand it, should makeit disgraceful for your father to have my throat cut. But beyond that--"He said gloomily. "Thal, get a couple of horses outside the wall. We mayneed to ride somewhere. I'm very much afraid we will. But first I'd liketo have some breakfast."
Fani said disappointedly:
"But aren't you going to face them? The men from Walden? You could shootthem!"
Hoddan shook his head.
"It wouldn't solve anything. Anyhow a practical man like your fatherwon't sell me out before he's sure I can't pay off better. I'll bet on aconference with me before he makes a deal."
Fani stamped her foot.
"Outrageous! Think what you saved me from!"
But she did not question the possibility. Hoddan observed:
"A practical man can always make what he wants to do look like a noblesacrifice of personal inclinations to the welfare of the community. I'vedecided that I've got to be practical myself, and that's one of therules. How about breakfast?"
He strapped the ship bag shut on the stun-pistols his pockets would nothold. He made a minor adjustment to the space communicator. It was notruined, but nobody else could use it without much labor finding out whathe'd done. This was the sort of thing his grandfather on Zan would haveadvised. His grandfather's views were explicit.
"Helping one's neighbor," he'd said frequently in Hoddan's hearing whileHoddan was a youth, "is all right as a two-way job. But maybe he'slaying for you. You get a chance to fix him so he can't do you no harmand you're a lot better off and he's a hell of a lot better neighbor!"
This was definitely true of the men from Walden. Hoddan guessed thatDerec was one of them. The other would represent the police or theplanetary government. It was probably just as true of Don Loris andothers.
Hoddan found himself disapproving of the way the cosmos was designed.Even though presently he sat at breakfast high up on the battlements,and Fani looked at him with interesting anxiety, he was filled withforebodings. The future looked dark. Yet what he asked of fate andchance was so simple! He asked only a career and riches and a delightfulgirl to marry and the admiration of his fellow-citizens. Trivial things!But it looked like he'd have to do battle for even such minor gifts ofdestiny!
Fani watched him breakfast.
"I don't understand you," she complained. "Anybody else would be proudof what he'd done and angry with my father. Or don't you think he'll actungratefully?"
"Of course I do!" said Hoddan.
"Then why aren't you angry?"
"I'm hungry," said Hoddan.
"And you take it for granted that I want to be properly grateful," saidFani in one breath, "and yet you haven't shown the least appreciation ofmy getting two horses over in that patch of woodland yonder"--shepointed and Hoddan nodded--"and having Thal there with orders to serveyou faithfully--"
* * * * *
She stopped short. Don Loris appeared, beaming, at the top of the stepsleading her
e from the great hall where conferences took place. Heregarded Hoddan benignly.
"This is a very bad business, my dear fellow," he said benevolently."Has Fani told you of the people who arrived from Walden in search ofyou? They tell me terrible things about you!"
"Yes," said Hoddan. He prepared a roll for biting. He said: "One ofthem, I think, is named Derec. He's to identify me so good money isn'twasted paying for the wrong man. The other man's police, isn't he?" Hereflected a moment. "If I were you, I'd start talking at a millioncredits. You might get half that."
He bit into the roll as Don Loris looked shocked.
"Do you think," he asked indignantly, "that I would give up the rescuerof my daughter to emissaries from a foreign planet, to be locked in adungeon for life?"
"Not in those words," conceded Hoddan. "But after all, despite your deepgratitude to me, there are such things as one's duty to humanity as awhole. And while it would cause you bitter anguish if someone dear toyou represented a danger to millions of innocent women andchildren--still, under such circumstances you might feel it necessary todo violence to your own emotions."
Don Loris looked at him with abrupt suspicion. Hoddan waved the roll.
"Moreover," he observed, "gratitude for actions done on Darth does notentitle you to judge of my actions on Walden. While you might and evenshould feel obliged to defend me in all things I have done on Darth,your obligation to me does not let you deny that I may have acted lessdefensibly on Walden."
Don Loris looked extremely uneasy.
"I may have thought something like that," he admitted. "But--"
"So that," said Hoddan, "while your debt to me cannot and should not beoverlooked, nevertheless"--Hoddan put the roll into his mouth and spokeless clearly--"you feel that you should give consideration to the claimsof Walden to inquire into my actions while there."
He chewed, and swallowed, and said gravely:
"And can I make deathrays?"
Don Loris brightened. He drew a deep breath of relief. He saidcomplainingly:
"I don't see why you're so sarcastic! Yes. That is a rather importantquestion. You see, on Walden they don't know how to. They say you do.They're very anxious that nobody should be able to. But while inunscrupulous hands such an instrument of destruction would be mostunfortunate ... ah ... under proper control--"
"Yours," said Hoddan.
"Say--ours," said Don Loris hopefully. "With my experience of men andaffairs, and my loyal and devoted retainers--"
"And cozy dungeons," said Hoddan. He wiped his mouth. "No."
Don Loris started violently.
"No, what?"
"No deathrays," said Hoddan. "I can't make 'em. Nobody can. If theycould be made, some star somewhere would be turning them out, or somenatural phenomenon would let them loose from time to time. If there weresuch things as deathrays, all living things would have died, or elsewould have adjusted to their weaker manifestations and developedimmunity so they wouldn't be deathrays any longer. As a matter of fact,that's probably been the case, some time in the past. So far as thegadget goes that they're talking about, it's been in use for half acentury in the Cetis cluster. Nobody's died of it yet."
Don Loris looked bitterly disappointed.
"That's the truth?" he asked unhappily. "Honestly? That's your last wordon it?"
"Much," said Hoddan, "much as I hate to spoil the prospects ofprofitable skulduggery, that's my last word and it's true."
"But those men from Walden are very anxious!" protested Don Loris."There was no ship available, so their government got a liner thatnormally wouldn't stop here to take an extra lifeboat aboard. It cameout of overdrive in this solar system, let out the lifeboat, and went onits way again. Those two men are extremely anxious--"
"Ambitious, maybe," said Hoddan. "They're prepared to pay to overcomeyour sense of gratitude to me. Naturally, you want all the traffic willbear. I think you can get half a million."
Don Loris looked suspicious again.
"You don't seem worried," he said fretfully. "I don't understand you!"
"I have a secret," said Hoddan.
"What is it?"
"It will develop," said Hoddan.
* * * * *
Don Loris hesitated, essayed to speak, and thought better of it. Heshrugged his shoulders and went slowly back to the flight of stonesteps. He descended. The Lady Fani started to wring her hands. Then shesaid hopefully:
"What's your secret?"
"That your father thinks I have one," said Hoddan. "Thanks for thebreakfast. Should I walk out the gate, or--"
"It's closed," said the Lady Fani forlornly. "But I have a rope for you.You can go down over the wall."
"Thanks," said Hoddan. "It's been a pleasure to rescue you."
"Will you--" Fani hesitated. "I've never known anybody like you before.Will you ever come back?"
Hoddan shook his head at her.
"Once you asked me if I'd fight for you, and look what it got me into!No commitments."
He glanced along the battlements. There was a fairly large coil of ropein view. He picked up his bag and went over to it. He checked thefastening of one end and tumbled the other over the wall.
Ten minutes later he trudged up to Thal, waiting in the nearby woodlandwith two horses.
"The Lady Fani," he said, "has the kind of brains I like. She pulled upthe rope again."
Thal did not comment. He watched morosely as Hoddan made the perpetuallypresent ship bag fast to his saddle and then distastefully climbedaboard the horse.
"What are you going to do?" asked Thal unhappily. "I didn't make aparting-present to Don Loris, so I'll be disgraced if he finds out Ihelped you. And I don't know where to take you."
"Where," asked Hoddan, "did those characters from Walden come down?"
Thal told him. At the castle of a considerable feudal chieftain, on theplain some four miles from the mountain range and six miles this side ofthe spaceport.
"We ride there," said Hoddan. "Liberty is said to be sweet, but the manwho said that didn't have blisters from a saddle. Let's go."
They rode away. There would be no immediate pursuit, and possibly noneat all. Don Loris had left Hoddan at breakfast on the battlements. TheLady Fani would make as much confusion over his disappearance as shecould. But there'd be no search for him until Don Loris had made hisdeal.
Hoddan was sure that Fani's father would have an enjoyable morning. Hewould relish the bargaining session. He'd explain in great detail howvaluable had been Hoddan's service to him, in rescuing Fani from anabductor who would have been an intolerable son-in-law. He'd grow almosttearful as he described his affection for Hoddan--how he loved hisdaughter--as he observed grievedly that they were asking him to betraythe man who had saved for him the solace of his old age. He wouldmention also that the price they offered was an affront to his paternalaffection and his dignity as prince of this, baron of that, lord of theother thing and claimant to the dukedom of something-or-other. Eitherthey'd come up or the deal was off!
But meanwhile Hoddan and Thal rode industriously toward the place fromwhich those emissaries had come.
All was tranquil. All was calm. Once they saw a dust cloud, and Thalturned aside to a providential wooded copse, in which they remainedwhile a cavalcade went by. Thal explained that it was a feudal chieftainon his way to the spaceport town. It was simple discretion for them notto be observed, said Thal, because they had great reputations asfighting men. Whoever defeated them would become prominent at once. Sosomebody might try to pick a quarrel under one of the finer points ofetiquette when it would be disgrace to use anything but standardDarthian implements for massacre. Hoddan admitted that he did not feelquarrelsome.
They rode on after a time, and in late afternoon the towers andbattlements of the castle they sought appeared. The ground here was onlygently rolling. They approached it with caution, following the reverseslope of hills, and dry stream-beds, and at last penetrating horse-highbrush to the point where th
ey could see it clearly.
If Hoddan had been a student of early terrestrial history, he might haveremarked upon the re-emergence of ancient architectural forms to matchthe revival of primitive social systems. As it was, he noted in thisfeudal castle the use of bastions for flanking fire upon attackers, herecognized the value of battlements for the protection of defenderswhile allowing them to shoot, and the tricky positioning of sally ports.He even grasped the reason for the massive, stark, unornamented keep.But his eyes did not stay on the castle for long. He saw the spaceboatin which Derec and his more authoritative companion had arrived.
It lay on the ground a half mile from the castle walls. It was a clumsy,obese, flattened shape some forty feet long and nearly fifteen wide. Theground about it was scorched where it had descended upon its rocketflames. There were several horses tethered near it, and men who wereplainly retainers of the nearby castle reposed in its shade.
Hoddan reined in.
"Here we part," he told Thal. "When we first met I enabled you to pickthe pockets of a good many of your fellow-countrymen. I never asked formy split of the take. I expect you to remember me with affection."
Thal clasped both of Hoddan's hands in his.
"If you ever return," he said with mournful warmth, "I am your friend!"
* * * * *
Hoddan nodded and rode out of the brushwood toward the spaceboat--thelifeboat--that had landed the emissaries from Walden. That it landed soclose to the spaceport, of course, was no accident. It was known onWalden that Hoddan had taken space passage to Darth. He'd have landedonly two days before his pursuers could reach the planet. And on aroadless, primitive world like Darth he couldn't have gotten far fromthe spaceport. So his pursuers would have landed close by, also. But itmust have taken considerable courage. When the landing grid failed toanswer, it must have seemed likely that Hoddan's deathrays had been atwork.
Here and now, though, there was no uneasiness. Hoddan rode heavily,without haste, through the slanting sunshine. He was seen from adistance and watched without apprehension by the loafing guards aboutthe boat. He looked hot and thirsty. He was both. So the posted guardmerely looked at him without too much interest when he brought his dustymount up to the shadow the lifeboat cast, and apparently decided thatthere wasn't room to get into it.
He grunted a greeting and looked at them speculatively.
"Those two characters from Walden," he observed, "sent me to getsomething from this thing, here. Don Loris told 'em I was a very honestman."
He painstakingly looked like a very honest man. After a moment therewere responsive grins.
"If there's anything missing when I start back," said Hoddan, "I can'timagine how it happened! None of you would take anything. Oh, no! I betyou'll blame it on me!" He shook his head and said "_Tsk. Tsk. Tsk._"
One of the guards sat up and said appreciatively:
"But it's locked. Good."
"Being an honest man," said Hoddan amiably, "they told me how to unlockit."
He got off his horse. He removed the bag from his saddle. He went intothe grateful shadow of the metal hull. He paused and mopped his face andthen went to the entrance port. He put his hand on the turning bar. Thenhe painstakingly pushed in the locking-stud with his other hand. Ofcourse the handle turned. The boat port opened. The two from Waldenwould have thought everything safe because it was under guard. On Waldenthat protection would have been enough. On Darth, the spaceboat had notbeen looted simply because locks, there, were not made with separatevibration-checks to keep vibration from loosening them. On spaceboatssuch a precaution was usual.
"Give me two minutes," said Hoddan over his shoulder. "I have to getwhat they sent me for. After that everybody starts even."
He entered and closed the door behind him. Then he locked it. By thenature of things it is as needful to be able to lock a spaceboat fromthe inside as it is unnecessary to lock it from without.
He looked things over. Standard equipment everywhere. He checkedeverything, even to the fuel supply. There were knockings on the port.He continued to inspect. He turned on the visionscreens, which providedthe control room--indeed, all the boat--with an unobstructed view in alldirections. He was satisfied.
The knocks became bangings. Something approaching indignation could bededuced. The guards around the spaceboat felt that Hoddan was taking anunfair amount of time to pick the cream of the loot inside.
He got a glass of water. It was excellent. A second.
The bangings became violent hammerings.
Hoddan seated himself leisurely in the pilot's seat and turned smallknobs. He waited. He touched a button. There was a mildly thunderousbang outside, and the lifeboat reacted as if to a slight shock. Thevisionscreens showed a cloud of dust at the spaceboat's stern, roused bya deliberate explosion in the rocket tubes. It also showed the retainersin full flight.
He waited until they were in safety and made the standard take-offpreparations. A horrific roaring started up outside. He touched controlsand a monstrous weight pushed him back in his seat. The rocket swung,and lifted, and shot skyward with greater acceleration than before.
It went up at a lifeboat's full fall-like rate of climb, leaving a trailof blue-white flame behind it. All the surface of Darth seemed tocontract swiftly below him. The spaceport and the town rushed toward aspot beneath the spaceboat's tail. They shrank and shrank. He saw otherplaces. Mountains. Castles. He saw Don Loris' stronghold. Higher, he sawthe sea.
The sky turned purple. It went black with specks of starshine in it.Hoddan swung to a westward course and continued to rise, watching thestar-images as they shifted on the screens. The image of the sun, ofcourse, was automatically diminished so that it was not dazzling. Therockets continued to roar, though in a minor fashion because there wasno longer air outside in which a bellow could develop.
* * * * *
Hoddan painstakingly made use of those rule-of-thumb methods ofastrogation which his piratical forebears had developed and which a boyon Zan absorbed without being aware. He wanted an orbit around Darth. Hedidn't want to take time to try to compute it. So he watched thestar-images ahead and astern. If the stars ahead rose above the planet'sedge faster than those behind sank down below it--he would be climbing.If the stars behind sank down faster than those ahead rose up--he wouldbe descending. If all the stars rose equally he'd be climbing straightup, and if they all dropped equally he'd be moving straight down. It wasnot a complex method, and it worked.
Presently he relaxed. He sped swiftly back past midday and toward thesunrise line on Darth. This was the reverse of a normal orbit, but itwas the direction followed by the ships up here. He hoped his orbit waslower than theirs. If it was, he'd overtake them from behind. If he werehigher, they'd overtake him.
He turned on the space phone. Its reception-indicator was piously placedat "Ground." He shifted it to "Space," so that it would pick up callsgoing planetward, instead of listening vainly for replies from thenonoperative landing grid.
Instantly voices boomed in his ears. Many voices. An impossibly largenumber of voices. Many, many, many more than nine transmitters were inoperation now!
"_Idiot!_" said a voice in quiet passion, "_sheer off or you'll get inour drive-field!_" A high-pitched voice said; "_... And group two takesecond-orbit position--_" Somebody bellowed: "_But why don't theyanswer?_" And another voice still said formally: "_Reporting group five,but four ships are staying behind with tanker_ Toya, _which is havingstabilizer trouble...._"
Hoddan's eyes opened very wide. He turned down the sound while he triedto think. But there wasn't anything to think. He'd come aloft to scoutthree ships that had turned to nine, because he was in such a fix onDarth that anything strange might be changed into something useful. Butthis was more than nine ships--itself an impossibly large space fleet.There was no reason why ships of space should ever travel together.There were innumerable reasons why they shouldn't. There was a limit tothe number of ships that co
uld be accommodated at any spaceport in thegalaxy. There was no point, no profit, no purpose in a number of shipstraveling together--
Darth's sunrise-line appeared far ahead. The lifeboat would soon ceaseto be a bright light in the sky, now. The sun's image vanished from therear screens. The boat went hurtling onward through the blackness of theplanet's shadow while voices squabbled, and wrangled, and formallyreported, and now and again one admonished disputants to a properdiscipline of language.
During the period of darkness, Hoddan racked his brains for the vaguestof ideas on why so many ships should appear about an obscure andunimportant world like Darth. Presently the sunset line appeared ahead,and far away he saw moving lights which were the hulls of the volublycommunicating vessels. He stared, blankly. There were tens-- Scores-- Hewas forced to guess at the stark impossibility of more than a hundredspacecraft in view. As the boat rushed onward he had to raise the guess.It couldn't be, but--
He turned on the outside telescope, and the image on its screen was moreincredible than the voices and the existence of the fleet itself. Thescope focused first on a bulging, monster, antiquated freighter of adesign that had not been built for a hundred years. The second view wasof a passenger liner with the elaborate ornamentation that in pastgenerations was considered suitable for space. There was a bulk-cargoship, with no emergency rockets at all and crews' quarters in longblisters built outside the gigantic tank which was the ship itself.There was a needle-sharp space yacht. More freighters, with streaks ofrust on their sides where they had lain aground for tens of years....
The fleet was an anomaly, and each of its component parts was separatelya freak. It was a gathering-together of all the outmoded and obsoletehulks and monstrosities of space. One would have to scavenge half thegalaxy to bring together so many crazy, over-age derelicts that shouldhave been in junk yards.
Then Hoddan drew an explosive deep breath. It was suddenly clear whatthe fleet was and what its reason must be. Why it stopped here could notyet be guessed, but--
Hoddan watched absorbedly. He couldn't know what was toward, but therewas some emergency. It could be in the line of what an electronicengineer could handle. If so--why--it could mean an opportunity toaccomplish great things, and grow rich, and probably marry somedelightful girl and be a great man somewhere--an assortment of ambitionsone could not easily gratify on Zan, or Walden, or Darth.
The Pirates of Ersatz Page 6
